August 07, 2015

Soft Tones of Pastel Beauty: Jean-Étienne Liotard

Paintings and portraits provide us with wonderful details about the dressing habits of centuries ago when photography hadn't been invented yet. There are artists - such as Swiss-French painter Jean-Étienne Liotard - who were known for their exquisite precision in painting fine costume details and textile patterns.

Rarely exhibited, Liotard is currently being rediscovered at the Scottish National Gallery in Edinburgh (until 13th September 2015) in the first exhibition that is comprehensively celebrating him in Britain (the event will move to the Royal Academy of Arts, London, from October 2015 to January 2016).

The exhibition includes a series of intimate portraits such as that of Princess Louisa Anne (1754), made with Liotard's favourite technique pastel painting on parchment. This technique gave his portraits a smooth velvety consistency and made his sitters look as if they vibrated with light.

Born in 1702 in Geneva, Liotard studied with Professors Gardelle and Petitot, before moving to Paris in 1725 to work under Jean-Baptiste Massé and François Lemoyne. On their recommendation, he was taken to Naples and then moved to Rome where he painted the portraits of Pope Clement XII and several cardinals.

In 1738 he accompanied Lord Duncannon to Constantinople; he also visited Istanbul and painted numerous pastels of Turkish domestic scenes, opting to offer a plausible rather than merely exotic vision of the Orient.

After this long stay in Constantinople (1738-1742) he continued wearing Turkish dress and extravagant Orientalist costumes when he went back to Europe, a habit that secured him the nickname "The Turkish painter" and that influenced fashion and the fine and decorative arts. Liotard often depicted himself in this attire employing a wide range of media and techniques, document his ageing, but also his passion for this exotic, eastern image.

His years abroad allowed him to gain a sensitivity to atmosphere and a passion for precise details, colours and the rendering of light: in "A Frankish Woman and Her Servant" (1750) the artist painted for example a free lady, a European from the Levant living in Pera, a district of Constantinople dressed in Turkish style and excorted by a young servant as she prepares to bathe. Both the women's fingers are decorated with henna, and both wear bouffant pants (salvar), a vest (cepken) and high wooden clogs (takunya).

A friend of the cultivated, wealthy and cosmopolitan society in Europe, Liotard painted many aristocrats, including the entire British royal family and in 1742 he went to Vienna to paint the Imperial family.

While a painter to the court in Vienna, Liotard created a charming portrait of Anna Baltauf, a chocolate server, a painting that was copied and, renamed "La Belle Chocolatiere", became by 1872 the trademark of the oldest chocolate manufacturer in the UK, the Baker Chocolate Company.

Liotard worked between Austria, France and England: in Britain his clientele included aristocrats, actors, Grand Tourists and men and women of fashion, portrayed in detailed clothes. Liotard also paid particular attention to fine layers of luxurious fabrics such as radiant silk or transparent lace.

In 1781 Liotard published his Traité des principes et des règles de la peinture and spent the last part of his life painting still lifes (in astonishing details) and landscapes. He died at Geneva in 1789.

An expert collector of paintings by the old masters and a refined miniaturist and print-maker, Liotard may not be extremely well-known, but his paintings, pastel drawings and drawings are part of major collections in museums in Amsterdam, Bern, and Geneva.

While his miniature of Bonnie Prince Charlie represents the Scottish angle in the exhibition at Edinburgh's National Gallery, the portraits of people in Turkish costumes are particularly interesting as they testify to the Enlightenment's interest in other cultures, while proving particularly enchanting when it comes to the details employed by the painter to recreate the intricate attires worn by the sitters.

His drawings and enamels or the portrait of the historian Edward Gibbon's girlfriend, of many Austrian princesses and of the members of his own family, such as a tender and sweet portrait of his daughter Marie-Anne Françoise gesturing for silence because the wooden doll she holds is sleeping, prove instead his technical skills in creating delicate, honest and intimate hyper-real portraits in soft precise pastel tones.

Perhaps the best definition about Liotard was provided by Horace Walpole, who stated "He painted admirably well in miniature, and finely in enamel, but he is best known by his works in crayons. His likeness were as exact as possible (…) Truth prevailed in all his works."

If, after seeing the exhibition, you have some time and want to see more costumes from the 1700s, don't forget the free screening of Stephen Frears' 1988 film Dangerous Liaisons (tonight at 6.00 pm), at the Hawthornden Lecture Theatre (Gardens Entrance), the Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh.